Some years ago I was introduced to the expression: ‘Golf is a game when you can start off as four complete strangers and four hours later end as four complete enemies.’
Only speaking from personal experience, I found it to be true. It was a corporate golf day – I won’t reveal the course – and each fourball member had paid to be there. We played behind a group that included a professional who would be available to wait a bit and have a look at our swings, have a chat and then go back to his group ahead.
All started well, until one of the fourball put himself down for a five on the opening par four. He actually made six, but it was going to be one of those days.
On one occasion an industry leader hit his tee shot into thick bush. He waved for us to carry on, to speed up play and all that. However, we all searched for a bit, as one does, and found nothing.
As we moved up the fairway a ball came zinging out of the very spot we had searched. Brilliantly struck, I have to add.
This person was a wayward driver, although admittedly he hit a long ball. But his recovery skills were supreme. Pro-like, although nothing about the rest of his game suggested that.
On one hole I also pulled my ball and, long story short, caught our esteemed partner teeing up a new ball in the rough and hitting it. On another occasion, the other leather-iron came into play (a different fourball member) and I was shocked when he walked off with longest drive (from that hole) at the prize-giving later. And the third member got me going when he decided to start awarding mulligans to himself, saying he would pay to charity afterwards.
Me? I didn’t contribute well to the scores and was comfortably, on the scorecards, the worst player. Fair enough, that’s golf. Except, it wasn’t fair.
However, golf can do this to the most ‘respected’ people. And so it was when watching segments of the first presidential debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump that I was amused, but not surprised, that they clashed over their golf games.
‘I just won two club championships,’ Trump said, after Biden had mocked him on social media about it. ‘It’s not even senior. Two regular club championships [at Trump International Golf Club West Palm Beach].’
The former president continued: ‘To do that, you have to be quite smart, and you have to be able to be quite smart, and you have to be able to hit the ball a long way. And I do it. He doesn’t do it. He can’t hit a ball 50 yards.’
Biden then stumbled about having had his handicap as low as a six, and then changed it to an eight and challenged Trump to a ‘driving contest’.
‘I’d be happy to play golf with you, if you carry your own bag. Think you can do it?’ Biden asked.
‘Let’s not act like children,’ Trump said.
‘You are a child,’ Biden replied.
So there it was, two grown men, vying for the population’s vote for the position of the most powerful president in the world, talking about their prowess on the golf course.
And you know what? I think both were lying.
The lesson? Golf is a game for all of us. Even the bad days are good, so don’t lie. Don’t cheat.
– This column first appeared in the August 2024 issue of Compleat Golfer magazine.
Photo: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
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